Day of the Serpent (Ouroboros Book 3) Page 6

  “And why is that?” asked Fox. “Because it's not real?”

  “No!” he replied. “Because it assumes that any creature in the loch must be somehow unnatural. Whereas I, and other researchers, consider the so-called monster to be merely a large, unidentified animal.”

  “Like a dinosaur, you mean?” asked the reporter.

  Carlton suppressed another sigh.

  “You are no doubt referring to the plesiosaurs, which do indeed bear some resemblance to the creatures spotted and photographed hereabouts,” he began. “But they became extinct some sixty-five million years ago. It seems impossible that a breeding colony of large reptiles might have survived in this one, relatively small–”

  Carlton, now well into his standard lecture on the subject, took a few moments to notice that the lens of the camera was now pointing at his midriff. Katie Fox had let the eyepiece fall away and was staring, apparently at Carlton.

  “What on earth are you doing?” he asked. Then, looking past her, he saw the small crowd on the road pointing and holding up phones. He turned to look out over the loch just in time to see a huge, terrifying head vanish beneath the dark waves. Carlton stood looking at the water for a while, then became aware that his mouth was open.

  “What do you think of that, Mike?” asked Katie Fox, now standing beside him, camera back on her shoulder and focused on his face.

  Carlton closed his mouth and said, “Well, I'll be buggered!”

  There was a sudden tremor, and again the camera slewed away. Screams came from the onlookers, this time more urgent than before. A great rumbling sound echoed between the hills that flanked the loch.

  ***

  “Our first test, and it went well,” said Cleo, turning the small truck onto the highway out of Inverness. Kelly sat beside her in the passenger seat. The two men were in the back with the bulky device. The latter, a mass of old-fashioned valves and dials, was powered by hefty batteries that left little room for Clay and Andreas.

  The cult members were listening to an interview on the local radio news. A talk show host was talking to someone who had witnessed the 'latest manifestation of Nessie.’

  “So,” asked the presenter, “was it another buxom mermaid?”

  Cleo laughed.

  “No,” said the eyewitness, “it was more like, you know, Nessie.”

  “Well,” persisted the host, “what did it look like?”

  “Something between a Chinese dragon and a sea serpent,” was the reply. “I filmed it on my phone, anyway. So did lots of people and–”

  “Yeah,” the host butted in, “and it did coincide with this earthquake, first we've had in a long while. You think Nessie might have tummy trouble, Angus? Maybe eaten a shepherd that didn't agree with her?”

  Cleo flicked off the radio.

  “Mockery. Disrespect. But at least some of them saw one of the Old Ones.”

  “One of the oldest aspects of Ouroboros,” Kelly agreed. “I felt her, albeit for a fleeting moment. Felt her need to be reborn. She wants to rise again and claim her inheritance.”

  “It was still very reckless,” said Clay, crouching in the back of the truck. “Somebody could have been killed! And now there are witnesses.”

  Andreas looked puzzled, staring from Clay to Cleo and back.

  “You're upsetting him, Jonathan,” Kelly admonished Clay. “The whole point is to attract attention, remember? It creates a sense of wonder, of myth becoming reality.”

  “Yes,” chimed in Cleo, “it all helps prepare people mentally for the Big Event. And if the Insane One comes as a result of our actions, so much the better. She has to be destroyed, or she could derail the whole process.”

  “But why do we have to go to Culloden Moor?” demanded Clay. “We know it works.”

  “We know it worked once,” Kelly replied. “We need another test, and the loch is too close to home, right Cleo?”

  “You read my mind, honey,” smiled the big woman. “We'll be there in half an hour. Then we see if that thing raises the dead.”

  “I still think we should have built up our numbers,” muttered Clay. “Followed the old ways.”

  “The old ways got most of us killed at Wychmere,” snapped Cleo.

  There was a long silence. Kelly reached out to Cleo with her mind.

  He means well, she said. He just can't grasp the essence of what we're trying to do.

  I know, Cleo replied. He was the first to understand the Old Faith. I should be more patient.

  Kelly felt Cleo's irritation start to melt away, only for it to surge up again when a red sports car cut in front of her.

  “You stupid bastard!” Cleo shouted.

  Kelly received a sudden, shocking image of Cleo's lamia-b0dy wrapped around a flabby, screaming, pathetic man. The victim was clad in an expensive suit, patent leather shoes, every inch the corporate type. He was also being slowly crushed in Cleo's golden coils, blood bursting from mouth, nostrils, eyeballs. Kelly realized that this stood for all the men who had abused Cleo. A generic Powerful Man who would soon be powerless, begging for a mercy that would not be forthcoming.

  “Sorry,” said Cleo, seeing Kelly's face. “I really need to rein it in. But oh baby, there's gonna be a reckoning with all those arseholes. I can hardly wait for the glorious day to come.”

  ***

  “This is boring,” moaned Will. “I thought there'd be soldiers and stuff.”

  “Shh, dear,” said Julie, smiling apologetically at the small group of tourists. Nobody smiled back. The bleakness of the tourists' expressions mirrored the weather. It might still be summer back in England, but up on Culloden Moor it was damp, with a thick mist getting denser by the minute.

  Miserable old sods, thought Julie. Why did Paul want to drag the kids to a battlefield? Anybody can see that when the battle's finished, it's just a field.

  “There's a film, with lots of explosions,” said the young tourist guide, in an optimistic tone. “And we do have some re-enactors coming later to demonstrate how to fire a cannon. It makes a tremendous noise.”

  For a moment Julie thought Will was going to ask, in his usual bellicose tone, exactly how many explosions were on offer. But instead, her son fell silent. His expression remained eloquent, though. He was still convinced the battlefield of Culloden was boring. Cressida, clutching her plush mermaid, looked equally unimpressed. But to openly agree with her older brother would have been unthinkable. Instead, Cressida stood staring up at the guide, a disconcerting habit Julie hadn't been able to break.

  “Anyway,” the guide went on, “let me fill you in on a few details. Culloden was the last pitched battle fought on British soil, and took place in 1746. The forces of King George II clashed with those of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. Charles, or Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was considered the legitimate king by his followers, of course.”

  “And still is by some of us,” said a severe looking old man.

  “Quite so,” responded the guide, “but it was here at Culloden on that fateful day that the last attempt to win the throne by force ended in a welter of bloodshed. Lots of blood,” he added, looking at Will. Will remained impassive.

  “Now,” the guide went on, “if you will come inside the Visitor Center we will view the award-winning film, ‘Culloden,’ which combines historical re-enactment with modern reportage to bring the many and varied characters involved to life.”

  People began to follow the guide inside, but then the group hesitated in confusion. The children heard it first.

  “What's that noise, Daddy?” asked Will.

  Paul was baffled initially but then he, too, heard the remote, eerie wail.

  “I think,” said the guide hesitantly, “that it might just be someone playing the bagpipes. You do get the odd lone piper around here. It's a place of pilgrimage for some.”

  “That's more than one piper, laddie,” said the severe old man. “Sounds like a dozen or more.”

  “Are those the reactors, Mummy?” ask
ed Cressida, pointing into the mist.

  Julie squinted at the fleecy haze. There were figures in the mist, showing up dark gray against silver gray.

  “Perhaps we should go inside, now,” said the guide. He sounded nervous.

  “Why?” asked Paul. “Isn't this the re-enactment?”

  Before the guide could answer, there was a tremendous bang. Julie gave an involuntary scream. She heard something pass swiftly over the Visitor Center, caught a glimpse of a hurtling gray sphere. In the mist, there was a red and orange flash, then the boom of a second explosion. Ripples spread through the mist, jerked it aside for a moment. A line of men briefly came into view. There were dozens.

  Nobody can afford that many re-enactors, thought Julie.

  “Are they making a movie or something?” asked an American voice, without much conviction.

  A series of loud bangs came from the other side of the Visitor Center. More shells passed over the tourists and tore the mist apart. And not just the mist. Cries of agony and rage came from the half-hidden men. And now booming sounds came from their direction as the artillery barrage began in earnest.

  “Everybody please get inside, now!” shouted the guide. The words combined with the panic in the young man's voice unfroze the crowd, and they started to crowd into the small doorway. Julie grabbed Cressida as Paul tried to shield Will.

  “Let the kids in first!” the guide pleaded, but only a couple of people moved aside. The rest continued to block the entrance in their panic. Now Julie could hear voices from the mist, voices shouting in a language that certainly wasn't English. She glanced over her shoulder, weeping in anguish, and saw an uneven line of men running straight at them.

  The Highlanders would have looked quaint in their tartan kilts and headgear, had it not been for the blood-lust in their faces, and the huge swords in their hands. They charged towards the Visitor Center. The rage in their battle cries made Cressida cling tightly to Julie.

  “Don't be scared, don't be scared,” Julie whispered urgently. But she could hear the terror in her own voice.

  ***

  “Zamyatin?” said James Norton finally, after mulling over their account for half a minute. “New one on me, I must admit. But then the Cold War is a little outside my sphere of interest. I tend to favor Victorian and early twentieth century occultism.”

  “But what do you think?” asked Denny, pushing away her plate. “Could this device somehow end the world, or at least bring down civilization as we know it?”

  “What do I think? If you weren't friends of Marcus, I would dismiss you as arrant impostors,” said the professor. “But as he took you seriously, I suppose I must do so as well. If this device can tap into some kind of primal energy, perhaps it will wreck this so-called civilization. And many might argue that that would not be an entirely bad thing.”

  Brad felt frustrated. He had hoped, he now realized, that Norton would prove to be a kind of substitute for Marcus. But instead, they seemed to have found a sedentary academic when they needed a man of action. Still, Norton was the real deal when it came to occult knowledge.

  That's something, Brad thought. But can he suggest anything useful?

  Denny must have had the same thought.

  “What about Ouroboros, though?” she asked. “From what we've told you, is there any way to stop whatever they're planning?”

  “Surely you have more practical knowledge than I?” Norton parried with a thin smile as he toyed with his last chicken wing. “But I will look into it. Perhaps the library archives will have something of interest. At the very least I may find the basis for an interesting paper on snake worship.”

  “Better hope the world doesn't end,” put in Brad. “Otherwise, there'll be no academic journals to publish it in.”

  Norton picked up his glass of a single malt Scotch.

  “Well, let's drink to that noble sentiment!”

  Why not? I'm paying, thought Brad.

  “Do you think the cultists might have moved into Aleister Crowley's old house?” he asked Norton.

  “No,” said Denny, before the professor could reply. “Boleskine House burned down a couple of years back.”

  “I see you've done your research,” said Norton, looking a little peeved. “Yes, it is just a ruin now. Before the fire, it was owned by some kind of pop star who bought it for the ambiance. Apparently it features on a famous album cover.”

  “So we've got no idea where they might be?” asked Brad, rhetorically. “Still, it can't be that big an area, can it?”

  “Loch Ness is one of the biggest lakes in Europe,” Denny pointed out. “It's about fifteen miles long. And it’s surrounded by mountainous country with lots of small towns and villages.”

  “But those are places where newcomers would stand out, surely?” queried Norton.

  “Yeah, but the cultists have a way of controlling people,” said Brad, and explained what happened to the people of Wychmere.

  “Good lord, how extraordinary,” said Norton, looking as if he only half-believed Brad's account. “So they could be anywhere in the region?”

  “But they must have gone there because of something specific,” said Denny. “A precise location. Perhaps if we–”

  She stopped talking as the waitress arrived with their desserts.

  “Who ordered the cherry cheesecake?” she asked.

  “Mine, I think,” replied Denny. At the same moment Brad looked up at the cheesecake and began to speak, then stopped himself.

  “Is it yours, sir?” asked the waitress, confused.

  “No, no sorry,” said Brad, “I just wish I'd ordered a dessert.”

  Denny gave a puzzled smile.

  “Share mine if you like,” she offered. “I'm trying to lose a few pounds.”

  Brad shook his head, waited until the waitress had gone, then explained, “Something about cherries. It almost came to me. I think I dreamed it. Might there be a link to the loch?”

  Denny and Norton looked baffled, but then the academic nodded hesitantly.

  “You know, there might be. I can't imagine why, but perhaps I could look it up.”

  “Hang on,” said Denny, taking out her phone.

  “Oh,” protested Norton, “of course you can't credit things you find on Wikipedia and such.”

  Denny smiled into the screen, then turned it around to show a small picture. To Brad, it seemed to show a featureless round blob in an expanse of blue-gray.

  “Really?” she asked Norton as she handed the phone back to Brad. “Take a look. There's your connection.”

  Brad stared at the screen, looked up at the reporter.

  “That's weird enough to be right,” he said. “Worth a try, anyway.”

  “What on earth is this about?” asked Norton.

  Brad tried to explain.

  ***

  “This is wrong, this is wrong, so very wrong,” Anita Sharma kept repeating.

  “It's by far the lesser of two evils, that's how it pans out sometimes. Now please shut up, go outside, and keep watch,” ordered Knapton.

  The nurse hesitated, staring at the young woman tightly bound up in tape on the floor of the empty hospital room. Knapton grabbed Anita by the arm, leaned close to her.

  “You've broken half a dozen rules to allow a non-relative to visit a vulnerable patient. Your job is on the line. I know you feel some weird compulsion to defend this creature–”

  He nudged Lisa with one booted toe. She writhed and started shouting through her tape-gag. Knapton brandished the Taser Gun again and Lisa stopped moving, became quiet.

  “But I reckon you're a good person, Anita,” he went on. “You know you were used, hypnotized, whatever. Don't you remember?”

  The nurse hesitated, frowning. Then she shook her head and went outside, closing the door behind her.

  “I think we're alone now, as the song has it,” said Knapton, bending over Lisa and pulling the tape from her mouth. She spat at him, then snarled a series of words in a foreign languag
e.

  “And I agree,” he said, “you do have grounds for complaint. But consider my position. And remember who's in charge.”

  He brandished the Taser again.

  “I need your help, and I'm breaking a lot of rules to ask for it. Out in the car park is a friend of mine, a good man. Unfortunately, he was bitten by one of your cohorts and now he's a puppet. Not really a man at all.”

  “How sad!” sneered Lisa. “I am heartbroken.”

  “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” replied Knapton. “The point is, he suggested to me that there is a solution to his problems. And you are it.”

  “How did you know what I am?” she shouted. She started to writhe again but, Knapton noted that she showed no sign of losing her human appearance.

  “What if I said it was Mister Valentine?” suggested Knapton.

  Lisa froze, then snarled again.

  “No! He would never betray me!”

  “As I understand it, you put him in here,” returned Knapton. “Nearly killed him. Not nice behavior. In his place, I might be inclined to hit back.”

  “He is a good man!” Lisa yelled. “Not cruel! Not like you, fascist bastard!”

  Knapton hunkered down beside her and patted her on a tape-wrapped shoulder.

  “I'm trying to help a friend,” he said. “And I'm going to release you in a moment so that you can help me help him.”

  Lisa smiled, all trace of her rage gone.

  “You're thinking about killing me, of course,” said the police officer, producing a clasp-knife. “I've seen that look on the faces of regular humans a few times. Well, you could do that. But then you'd never have your revenge on Cleo, would you?”

  The smile vanished, and Lisa snarled. For a moment, Knapton thought he saw fangs appear. Then the smile was back and the girl said, “Tell me more, Mister Policeman. And you're right. When it comes to that bitch, my enemy's enemy is my friend. That is the right saying, yes?”

  “Oh yes,” said Knapton, cutting her free. “Very old saying. Now Miss Valentine, all you have to do is pretend to be a normal person while we walk out of here and go to see my friend. Do you think you can do that?”